Marvel At The Stars
by TheExiledCyborg
Summary: Blighthealer is a young nightwing living in the city of Cliffside. His only aspirations are to become a doctor and hopefully start his life anew, with nothing weighing him down; but then he became roommates with an a strange icewing named Glare. Then his life changed forever.
1. chapter 1

The wide sky yawned ahead of him, endless and clear and blue and cheerful; It was a stark contrast to his current feelings, even though the day was fair.

The nightwing beat his wings, taking him higher and higher. The mountains speed past under him, a blur of browns and greys and white caps of snow. Now _that_ fit his mood just perfectly!-Cold and drab and chisled by the harshness of life- that was more him, at the moment.

His royal blue eyes scanned the mountain side for his destination. Today was quite important; he had an interview with a potential roommate. If he failed the interview, he would have to spend another night in a filthy tavern until he found another place to live. He shuddered at the thought, sending a shiver through his wings which nearly sent him off-course.

He sighed as he landed in a stone-house neighbourhood carved straight out of a mountainside, only a short dragon hop away from the city of Cliffside; only a few years ago, the place had been called 'Mountainside', until the death of Queen Scarlet, in which it was re-named in honor of Prince Cliff.

It was a place inhabited by primarily Skywings, until after the war, where it became a diverse city full of Seawings and Icewings, as well as the occasional Sandwing; its northern location close to the sea gave it a temperate climate most of the year, so it was quite ideal for these tribes.

It was also one of the most prosperous cities in the Sky Kingdom. It had some of the best schools, best trade ports, best mines (Cliffside was known primarily for its rare vien of cuprite, prized for its bloodred color), best shops, best of pretty much everything (at least if you asked the residents).

The nightwing shook out his wings and glanced around at the stone buildings until he came across one with the label "34B" on its door. He blinked up at the gold plaque, then retrieved a scrap of paper out of a bag slung under one wing. It was an advertisement asking for a roommate to meet at "apartment 34B, preferably at noon, no later than dusk".

He sighed, tucked the ad back into his bag, knocked on the door, and braced himself; he couldn't fail now. He needed this. He just needed to act normal, and surely-

He almost jumped out of his scales when a head the shade of pale snow stuck out from behind the door. His green-blue eyes regarded him without any hostility, but also without any sort of welcome; his scales radiated cold, and a small swirl of sparkling white emitted from between his teeth when he coughed.

The nightwing froze in his tracks when he realized he was staring face-to-face with an icewing.

For a moment, they simply stared at each other, neither one speaking. The silent exchange had gone on for so long, that it almost made the nightwing jump again when the strange icewing finally spoke:

"Uh...So...I assume you are here about the ad?" he said slowly.

The nightwing nodded quickly. "Y-Yes! I am!"

Another awkward pause.

"...Would you like to come inside?" The icewing asked hesitantly, gesturing inward and opening the door further.

The nightwing nodded again and rushed inside. The icewing blinked and scratched the back of his neck, closing the door behind them.

The black dragon was impressed with how spacious the dim room was; the polished white walls and floors, the large windows with a view of the mountains, and the strange jars hanging from the ceiling gave the room a clean feel. He squinted at the jars, wondering what filled them, when he noticed their blue light.

The icewing behind him coughed akwardly and moved to a low stone table next to what appeared to be the kitchen section. He sat behind it and shuffled a few papers resting upon its surface, still scratching under his ruff of extra horns.

Now that he was sitting still, the nightwing was able to get a good look at the strange icewing: he was unusally thin for one of his tribe-but not in an unhealthy manner, as if he was malnourished, for none of his ribs were showing. It was more like his skeletal structure had been genetically built that way, almost like a rainwing. Also unusual: he was pale white from horns to tail, without any sort of gradient of color, unlike any other icewing he had ever seen.

He nearly jumped when the icewing spoke.

"My name is Glare, by the way," the white dragon said, meeting the nightwing's gaze.

The nightwing nervously folded in his wings. "My name is Blighthealer."

To his immense surprise, the icewing brightened. "Blighthealer? Ooo! What's your profession?-Wait, wait, don't tell me-" he held his blackened claws to his temples, as if trying to summon up some sort of psychic power. Blighthealer couldn't tell if this was some sort of form of mockery directed towards his tribe, or if the icewing was simply joking- he was too busy racking his brain for medical knowledge, trying to figure out the mystery behind the icewing's burned talons-

"You're...a gardener?" the icewing guessed, grinning and opening his eyes.

Blighthealer snapped out of his trance and shook his head. "N-No! I'm not, I'm a-"

"-A flipper?- You know, like you go to low-income areas, and...fix up the houses? And re-sale them?"

"What? No, I-"

"Ok, ok, you…" Glare now had his elbows sitting on the table, and was making a gesture with one talon as if giving permission for Blighthealer to continue.

Blighthealer sighed through his nose, making some smoke rise into the air between them. "I'm a doctor-or, at least- I'm _studying_ to become a doctor. I'm currently an intern at Cliffside Clinic."

Glare nodded. "Ah. I never would have guessed that. Very intriguing, Blighthealer."

Blighthealer enjoyed the note of sincere interest in the icewing's tone and the pleasant smile he had on his face, as if he really wanted to befriend the nightwing; never before had he met a dragon who acted as such. He felt a smile creep up to the corners of his mouth, despite himself.

"You may call me Blight," he said quietly, "if 'Blighthealer' is too much of a mouthful."

Glare shrugged. "Alright, if that is what pleases you, Blight." he flipped through the papers and pulled out a form and a piece of charcoal. "Just sign this agreement, and you're in."

Blight blinked. "I'm in?" he echoed.

Glare smiled a bit. "I mean, you've passed the interview. Just read the agreement and sign your name, and you can move in tomorrow."

Blight looked at the form whilst twisting the charcoal piece in his talon. "...But don't you want to ask me more questions? Such as…'have you ever committed a crime'? Or, 'do you have any disabilities'?"

Glare laughed a bit. "I suppose we can cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I'm content with someone who is quiet and pays their rent on time. Afterall, you're the first dragon to answer my ad in a month, and I'll admit that I am slightly desperate."

Blighthealer's heart froze like the icewing had breathed his death breath down his throat. " _I knew it._ " he thought. This icewing didn't want to be friends. He just needed someone to split the price of rent with.

" _Well what were you expecting?_ " his mother's sharp voice rasped from the sensible side of his brain, " _This isn't a meet and greet. You just needed a place to stay; this is nothing more than a business transaction, treat it as such!_ "

He supressed the memories of his mother and cleared his throat. "Very well." he said, taking the charcoal and reviewing the surprisingly simplistic terms and conditions presented on the form. He flipped it over, read the legal information twice to make sure it was all sound, and signed his name on the line.

Glare took the paper and placed it neatly in a folder with the other papers. "Excellent. I suppose I'll see you tomorrow, Blight."

Blighthealer nodded coldly, unable to understand the disappointment and anger that swelled up in his chest; the icewing was being friendly, something very rare between icewings and nightwings. He really should be grateful. He coughed and headed towards the front door.

"Thank you. It has been nice to meet you, Glare." he said, hating how his emotions made his voice so flat and terse.

The icewing blinked. "Nice to meet you too? Are you alright?"

Blight nodded. "Yes. I shall arrive before noon with my things."

Before the icewing could say anything else, Blight whisked out the door and took to the air, trying to replace the dark clouds rising in his brain with the billowing white clouds around him, although he was unsure why.


	2. Chapter 2

Blighthealer remained true to his word. The next day, when the sun was in the center of the sky, Glare heard a knock on his front door.

One of his ears twitched as he approached the mahogany entrance way, wondering if his new roommate had arrived. When he opened the door, however, all he saw was a few chests filled with scrolls and animal furs. Glare blinked and poked his head out the door.

"Hello?"

He suddenly screamed as his nose nearly collided with the pitch black and blue scales that had abruptly loomed out from behind a corner. The nightwing screamed back, dropping a box full of small artifacts in the process and flaring his wings open.

In the small timeframe that followed, Glare was able to get an ample view of the night dragon's belly; it was as as dark blue as his eyes, with silver scales dotting along his sides and chest.

 _"It's like his wings are...spilling stars...onto his underbelly…"_ he thought absently during those few seconds before the box fell onto his foot. He winced and placed a talon on his chest.

"You scared me!" he panted.

Blight flapped his wings with an exasperated expression. "You scared me!" he snapped, "Screaming like that! Three moons and sliver scales!"

The two took a moment to mumble apologies and catch their breath.

Blight sighed and picked up the box on Glare's foot. "Anyway, can you help me with my things, please?"

Glare let a small cold cloud woosh out of his snout as he took up two of the chests in his front talons. Together, he and Blight walked up the short staircase that led to the upper level of their building. Glare opened another door and put the chests down in his own room.

Blight looked around. "This is...your room?"

Glare rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeeeeeah...I'm sorry about that. I have a guest room, but...I use it as a lab...For a 'hobby' of mine, you could say."

Blight tilted his head. "...Hobby? What hobby?"

Glare shook his head dismissively and moved Blight's chests to the empty half of the room.

"Not important. Anyway," he stepped to his half of the room and pulled out a stringed instrument and a bow. "How do you feel about violin?"

Blight had never seen such an instrument. He gingerly held out his talon to brush against the rich polished wood and horsehair strings.

"Violin?" he said, unable to hold back the awe in his voice.

Glare grinned at the nightwing's expression, exposing razor sharp teeth that gleamed as white as the moons; the smile itself was unsettling, but Blight sensed that it held joy rather than malice, so...not as unsettling as he first thought.

The ice dragon took Blight's talons in his, freezing cold against warm ebony, and placed them at certain intervals on the instrument. Blight could only watch in stunned silence as Glare manipulated Blight's talons into playing a tune, carefully tightening and squeezing the nightwing's claws between his own and the strings, or pushing and pulling the bow with him; it almost felt surreal.

When it was over, Blight could hardly believe that it had happened. He blinked at his talons. He never thought he could make something so beautiful with them; his entire life, he had thought they were too heavy and useless to craft anything of worth...and yet, he had made music.

 _"With help of this icewing,"_ he thought bitterly, looking up into Glare's green-blue eyes.

Glare smiled at him. "So, what did you think?"

"I...Well...It was amazing." he admitted truthfully. It was almost impossible for him to find fault in what had transpired between them. And why should he?- The icewing was just showing him the beauty of music. Nothing strange or treacherous about that, right?

Glare nodded and slipped the violin back into its case and underneath a dresser on his side of the room. "I'm glad you thought so. It's hard to find anyone that has any…'true taste' for art in this town." He frowned, and Blighthealer thought he saw something colder than the white dragon's scales pass through his eyes.

Blight wanted to ask what was the matter, but he couldn't find his tongue before the icewing started packing a few things and whisked towards the exit.

"Well, anyway, I must leave; I'll be back shortly after dusk, however, so...don't worry! If you need anything...uh...Send for me! I'll be at the jeweller's! Goodbye!"

And before Blight could ask a single question, his roommate was gone, leaving him alone to unpack and settle in.

Blight huffed and shot a small burst of flame out of his nose.

"Rude," he muttered, "he didn't even offer to help me unpack before he left…"

He opened up a few of the chests and started sorting through them, wondering about his eccentric new acquaintance.

 _"All I know right now: he likes music, perhaps art; he works at the jewellery shop; he has burned talons, so perhaps he was in the war; he's very nice, nicer than any icewing I've ever met, and...that's it."_

He lifted up a large blue crystal sphere in his talons and stared at his reflection in its smooth surface, thinking. He huffed again and set in on top of a small nightstand on his side of the room, which Glare had apparently left for him to use.

 _"Things I don't know about Glare: what is this 'hobby' of his that requires a lab, what did he mean when he said no one in this town has a 'taste' for art, and pretty much everything else about him."_

He tapped his chin thoughtfully with a claw. Soon, he would unravel this mystery, and figure out everything about this strange icewing...and then…?

He shrugged as he sorted through his items.

 _"No matter; I just need a place to stay for now. Once I finish my internship at Cliffside Clinic, I'm out of here. Then that weird icewing can fend for himself, for all I care."_ he thought. He wouldn't allow himself to become too attached; as his mother would say: 'attachment causes problems'.

And he had enough problems.


	3. Chapter 3

Blighthealer opened his eyes. It was still dark in the room, but he could see dim outlines of shapes and the objects around him. He blinked, wondering what time it was.

" _A snowflake floats alone on a cold breeze...no one knows where it goes, no one can see...that although that snowflake is just like all of the others, that snowflake is lost, within its uniqueness is undiscovered…"_

Blight pricked his ears at the sound of the silvery voice coming from the windowsill; It was soft, slow, and eerie, and full of sorrow. The violin accompanying the voice matched it perfectly, and spoke in volumes of emotions that could never be put into words.

 _"...Because all snowflakes melt, their beauty is forgotten...No one remembers a lost snowflake...But some snowflakes hide something rotten, underneath a glassy fascade…"_

Blighthealer felt tears well up in his eyes as the voice started to waver woefully, making the song pick up into a higher octave of poignancy:

 _"So that snowflake blew somewhere far away, where the mountains are high and the ocean sprays, that snowflake found a cliff side to call home, there all alone he remains, he no longer has to roam…"_

Blighthealer wrapped his wings tighter around his body, cursing himself for his weakness. It was just a song, it didn't mean anything if he didn't _let_ it mean anything to him...but all Blight could think about, for some reason, was how sad the singer sounded...like the song was his soul being poured out in verse form.

 _"...But all snowflakes melt, their beauty is forgotten, no one will remember a lost snowflake, this snowflake hides something rotten, underneath his glassy fascade…"_

Blight tilted his head. What did that mean? Was Glare singing about... _himself_?- He listened more intensely, trying to glean what he heard of any possible clues that could decode the icewing's past:

 _"...The snowflake remains on his cliff side home...His soul wants to roam...But he is betrayed...He is melting slowly...He has lost his way…."_

The song melted away as slowly and softly as it had begun; the voice wavered, leaving nothing but the soothing tones of the fading violin. Blighthealer sighed to himself, succumbing to fatigue, and closed his eyes. Whatever that song meant...he could find out tomorrow.

He let a solitary tear for the icewing fall down his cheek, despite himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blight walked down the long corridor of the clinic, carrying a bowl full of water. Although it was hardly dawn, the patients were already grumbling; in every room he passed, he could hear muffled complaints, long-suffering sighs, and growling.

Most of the patients here were former soldiers from the recently-ended war. On many of the red and orange bodies, there were branded stories of great deeds, heroic feats...and great travesties. Burn marks twisted scales into horrifying black shapes; frostbite knawed off wings and tails; claw marks, missing teeth, venom slashes, dying tissue; it took alot out of a dragon to read those stories...and try to re-write them with a happier ending.

Blighthealer sighed as he stood beside a doorway near the end of the hall. He tried to brace himself for what lay ahead of him, for the horror he was about to endure, for the sake of helping another dragon-

"NIGHTWING! IS THAT YOU?!? WERE IS MY WATER?!?"

Blighthealer jumped almost six feet into the air as the screechy voice tore through the mild peace of the clinic. He caught the water, thankfully without spilling a drop. He sighed, mourning the peace.

"Right here, Harrier!" he called as cheerfully as he could manage. He brought the bowl before a large rusty-red skywing laying on a bed in the room.

She snorted and practically snatched the bowl from him. "About time," she grumbled before taking a large sip.

Blight nodded, greatful for the powerful pain medicine infused in the drink; with her asleep, there would be much more tranquility throughout the clinic.

"I apologize for your wait, but I had to tend to another patient." Technically true: that dragonet _did_ need help finding that stuffed bird she loved so much. It wasn't like he was _specifically_ stalling so Swift could mix the medication in the water, or so Harrier would have to wait, or anything; not at _all_.

"Hm," she said suspiciously. She shifted so her broken wing could rest in a slightly different position.

Blighthealer hated having to tend to this particualr patient; she never hid her distain for him or his tribe; She never hid her disdain from anyone. Blighthealer had figured it was a natural skywing trait, to hate everyone and everything, but as it turns out, not every skywing could be as execrable as Harrier.

It made Blight glad that he could go home everyday to the quiet Glare instead; at least _he_ didn't yell at him, or make snark remarks about his tribe's ruined reputation, or throw things at him just because he was in pain.

Thinking about the icewing seemed to bring back the faint tune of the snowflake song. He started humming it to himself as he went about the clinic, trying to replicate the soft, silver tune just as he had heard it, with limited success.

Blighthealer was unable to get anything out of Glare that morning, when he had asked about it.

"Song? What song?" Glare had tilted his head as if confused.

"The song you were singing last night," Blight had insisted, "the song about the snowflake?"

"Oh, that," Glare had torn open his goat and sniffed dismissively. "that was nothing. Just a little song I wrote."

"It was incredible!" Blight said, "You really have talent, I must admit."

Glare had only shook his head. "It was nothing but a little song; forget it."

"Well, it must have meant something to you, if you wrote it." Blight had been risking getting closer to his real interrogation: asking about Glare's past.

Glare looked up at the nightwing, and for a moment, Blight was afraid that he had offended him; but Glare had just passed him the rest of his goat and grabbed a box by the door.

"It means nothing to me; I thank you for your ear, but I assure you, the song means nothing. Don't worry about it."

He had left in a hurry. Blight knew he was lying, because his green-blue eyes had been bloodshot, as if he had been crying for a very long time; If the song had truely meant nothing, why would he write and sing something so soulful?

"Nightwing! I need more water!"

"Nightwing! Be a dear and fix my pillows?"

"Can I get another rabbit? This one is scorched to a crisp."

"Nightwing!"

"Nightwing!"

"Nightwing!"

Blight growled and covered his ears as more and more patients started to make their daily demands in their loud, annoyingly screechy voices; it was enough to drive him half-mad. But, as always, he swallowed his rage, smiled as he attended to his patients, and assisted the nurses and stuck-up skywing doctors with their daily needs.

Everytime, whenever he felt the pressure building up, whenever he felt upset or angry or fustrated with a patient, or sick from what he had seen: that violin tune started playing in his head, and he remembered the icewing's sad song about the lost snowflake. It always soothed him, and reminded him about why he was putting up with the skywings and their brash ways; because he genuinely wanted to help others.

 _Because all snowflakes melt, their beauty is forgotten,_

 _No one remembers a lost snowflake,_

 _But some snowflakes hide something rotten,_

 _Underneath a glassy fascade…_

 _ **(Author's Note:** Listen to "Hospital Bed" by the Cold War Kids. It goes good with this chapter, and perhaps later ones. Sorry for this one being rather rushed; hopefully, it will get better soon!)_


End file.
